"Somebody's fired the ship's rockets!" came Hap's wondering voice over the speakers. "That launcher on top of the temple's shot to hell, along with the sanctuary and the water tower!"
Who the hell? Danny had no time to solve riddles. A thought flashed through his mind about unfinished pyramids. Maybe they'd cap their pyramid now, prophecy willing! When he dashed into the large bridge room he saw Pike on the floor, bleeding profusely from his mouth and nose. The figure on top of him was pounding away at him as if he'd lost his mind. Just then the ship shook again, this time from an internal blast. Through smoke and debris came Bjornson, Poyntner and the demolition squad. It took all of them to pull Fitzgerald Gogarty from his victim.
In minutes they had the story from Fitz. When the militia had come after Boozie and Bruno, he had hidden in one of the Pit chambers. Everyone thought he had escaped in the shuttle.
"Somebody had to play sneaky down here!" he grinned. "The closed-circuit monitors came in handy."
At the last moment he had noticed gun-crew action on top of the temple. He had fired a rocket salvo in time. Then he had jumped Pike.
"Man, did Adolf walk into it!" he enthused. "Been waiting for years–"
"Let's not forget what we came for," interrupted Poyntner. He searched Danny's face somberly. "Hapgood finishes out the hiber crew."
Danny returned his stare. He knew the astrophysicist was right. There were now himself, Poyntner, Fitz, Bruno, Boozie and Hapgood. It was a top team.
"If you're going," rumbled Bjornson, "you'd better fire up the gravitrons before something else happens."
Hapgood had come onto the Bridge in time to hear the decision concerning himself. He said nothing, sharing the silence with his men as they all stared at Danny. He stared back at each of them, suddenly marveling at how simple a thing could sound when it was actually like dying. When you died, he thought, many things were always left unresolved, such as the colony, the women, the unanswered question of the monarchy. Could the remaining anti-loyalists handle Alonso and his followers? What about Pike? Maybe Bjornson should be appointed to the erstwhile Council?
Suddenly the speakers crackled. Most of them had forgotten that there was a direct intercom line to the temple. "This is Vice-Regent Odell," came the peremptory voice of the former expert in cultural sciences. It was a demand for unconditional surrender in the name of "His Royal Highness, King Alonso the First of Terra Nova, Prince of New Andragoya."
Danny listened with only half an ear, so great was his surprise. Odell was a vice-regent of the realm, which meant that he was probably the mastermind behind the whole secessionist plot, and now the King's vizier and Minister of War. Through it all, Pike grinned vindictively with his bruised and bloodied lips. The ultimatum came.
"All insurgents will leave the ship and surrender themselves immediately," said the vice-regent, "subject to the following consequence for non-compliance. Within one hour, the scoutship will make a bomb run against Ravano's fleet. Many insurgents and their native wives or families will die as a result, not to mention several thousand Talavats. If you doubt that we can eliminate the entire evacuation fleet, be advised that His Majesty's Government now possesses nuclear striking power."
"Nuclear!" exclaimed Makart aghast.
"We might have known it!" said Fitz disgustedly. "The final contamination!"
Hapgood shrugged at Danny. "We were beginning to suspect as much."
"That explains their delayed schedules in delivering cores for the reactors," added Poyntner. "They were storing them up for WMDs."
Danny tensed, remembering the Oracle: "Maitluccan departs when the Sun Death strikes." Lalille or whatever power that spoke through her had foreseen the atom bomb! "Some of you will return to your world," the Laha had said. "Others will remain as Servers." That didn't sound like a hiber trip!
"Come on, Danny," urged Bourns. "Zellon and others died to get you here. Are you going to let it all go to waste?" The ship and the mission were vital, he thought, but at all costs? What about the women? Under Alonso's regime, if it continued, would they be married off by royal decree or become playthings of the court?
"The bomb makes a difference," he said almost in a monologue. "It would give Alonso world dominance."
"We'll get to him before he can use it!" countered Makart, who had joined them with other commandos from the lower decks. "Foxy's fleet is safe. Don't worry about it!"
Staccato thought-flashes burst like a rocket flare in Danny's mind. He was back in the multiplex time-consciousness state as in the temple of the Lahas. "In the great cloud of knowable things," said the great one, "if the question is known, the answer will come." The men in the room were worried and impatient, pressing him for a decision. His frustration lay in the fact that he wasn't sure of having the right question.
The speakers crackled again. "You now have fifty minutes to decide," warned the vice-regent peremptorily.
Danny's thought-flashes persisted: Was going off on a six-man hiber trip the "At-One-Ment" Sam had spoken of? Was that completing the pyramid and seeing with a single eye? Here was duty blindness, the mistake of the pragmatic imperative, the packaged illusion obscuring the bedrock of Man's collective nature. The end could never justify the means if it excluded the whole. No man was an island. They must return to bring the dream, like the other star ships that would come home when they learned what they didn't know. They must go together or not at all. This alone was total commitment!
Hapgood stepped to the intercom mike. "What should I tell him?" he asked simply.
In that moment, Danny remembered more vividly what the blue-green-visaged Laha had said. Not "Some of you will return," but "Many." His eyes widened as he stared at Hapgood and the others, suddenly stabbed by the realization that a single word might change history.
Or maybe Holy Sam's firm belief in intervention.
But the answer had come. "Tell him," he said simply, "that we will surrender."
CHAPTER XXI
The first rays of the sun slanted through the volcanic clouds in cathedral shafts of light, casting every object in long-shadowed stark relief: the half-burned smoldering barns and the toppled fractionating tower, the soaring buttresses of the ancient ziggurat, the long lines of nearly naked Golak troops with their single-action rifles, the waiting roborgs. All that was lacking, thought Danny, was a trumpet fanfare and a roll of drums. It was the only thing Alonso was missing in his pompous display of power.
The temple had been largely altered during the past three years. Two arched gothic entrances had been built into the facade of the lower level, one on either side of the steep-angled staircase. The lower terrace had been extended outward on the side facing the square. Over the stone balustrade hung huge, colorful banners displaying replicas of the Terra Nova shield plus a new coat of arms which evidently represented the royal dynasty of New Andragoya. Upright banners on either side of the stairs also bore the same heraldic colors. On the terrace itself waited the king, the vice-regent, courtiers, and a row of grim-faced troops. Hapgood had warned Danny that the latter were not Lyshenko's men. They were strictly secessionist fanatics, the elite guard of the royalists.
In the square were at least a hundred men, more than half of whom were estimated to be responsive to the Skipper's code-launched Mayday plan. Therefore, from fifty to sixty of them would now regard Danny as their commander, if he should take command. From outward appearances, however, this seemed unlikely. Between the ranks of armed troops and roborgs moved the captives and their captors. Pike and his security detail of two dozen men were herding Danny, Poyntner, Bjornson, Fitz, and the other insurgents of the commando team ahead of them at gunpoint.
So much for appearances. Pike's gun was unloaded but the guns at his back were not. The entire security platoon was anti-royalist. The objective of the masquerade was simple: to capture Odell and Alonso and to take over control of Terra Nova in a bloodless coup. It was everything the whole insurgent effort had aimed for. If it failed, all would be lost: the shi
p, the mission, and the priceless boon of the star quest.
Danny alone had decided on the gamble. Without him there could be no hiber trip, so there was only one course left. Some of the men like Fitz and even the Axe were now with him completely. Hapgood and some of the others were dubious. Poyntner had been gravely silent and pensive, his scientist's mind haunted by an experience the others hadn't shared. He had been with Danny in the temple of the Lahas. There were whispered complaints. Had Danny gotten religion or something? All of a sudden he was playing Joan of Arc, staking everything on his faith in a prophecy. However, they were mystified by the fact that Old Pointed Head wasn't fighting back with his usual fiery derision.
Finally, in halting, half-whispered sentences, Poyntner tried to tell them why. He mentioned the flash visions and dreams some of them had experienced while approaching the planet, which had turned out to be actual glimpses of the Laha contact, through lattices in the illusory screen of temporal impressions. Mumbling about time-stasis structure versus the illusion of so-called real time, he maintained that there had to be scientific laws behind the workings of prophecy. The advent of Alonso's nuclear capability had thoroughly convinced him. The Oracle had predicted the Sun Death. Therefore, the solution here involved more than their own idea of a hiber trip. It had to involve them all, as Danny had insisted.
If any lacked faith in Danny's hunches or Poyntner's science, however, there was still one pragmatic technicality to cling to: the vital roborg control was now in Hapgood's hands.
For the otherwise dubious among them this had been the clincher, plus the fact that the bomb had to be stopped. No one knew where the scoutship was hidden at the moment, with the possible exception of Adolf the Pike.
* * * *
The final number was played in what seemed to be a brutally short turn of the wheel. Events, words, reactions, all came on top of each other like Danny's staccato thought flashes: the captives standing on the terrace before Alonso and Odell, the Elite Guard poised threateningly while the imperious tirade ensued, prior to the world collapsing. Alonso wore a red cape trimmed with the ermine-like fur of rare white khaitabus over his dark suit of state. His aristocratic features were drawn thin by the megalomaniac fires that consumed him, his slightly sunken eyes aflame with a self-induced illusion of imperial might. The resistance was at an end, he was telling them, and now the plans of empire would proceed unimpeded. The evacuation fleet was going to be destroyed, regardless of Danny's surrender.
"The main body of the Talavat nation has already been transferred to New Andragoya," he announced, referring to the vast mainland to the north. "They will capitulate, if need be by force of terror, and for their own good. The nuclear destruction of Ravano's fleet will strike their superstitious souls with dread. Like the children that they are, they will obey my will!" He smiled humorlessly. "As for the heathen priestess, Akala, holding her as a hostage should be a further inducement for Ravano's capitulation to the throne of Terra Nova."
Then Pike had not been bluffing! What about Freddie, Tallullah, Lalille? Alonso must have seen the insuppressible question in Danny's eyes.
"As for the other women," he said, "they will be used as a final leverage, if necessary, or perhaps as a bonus to the faithful." His glance intentionally darted to Odell and Pike.
The obvious inference triggered Danny to launch his coup. At a signal, Hapgood's men spread out and got the advantage of the elite guard before they knew what was happening. Odell was the first to see the roborg control in Happy's hands. A cry went up in the square as the roborgs lumbered into a new formation facing the Golak troops, backed by four or five dozen anti-loyalists. A few lasers flashed as some of the Golaks charged forward, but soon the savage ranks withered back, dimly aware that the feared fire devils had suddenly turned against them. The remaining mix of neutral earthmen and royalists milled about below undecided or engaged in sporadic fistfights. Gun play in the crowd was quickly subdued by the Flight-Com regulars who had been prepared by Hapgood's Mayday signals.
Danny's hastily organized speech was marred by unforeseen elements. Even as he told Alonso that his brief regime was at an end, he was aware of Fitz nudging him urgently and of Pike's crack-lipped grin of secret triumph. The miniature microphone button on the king's ermine collar was the first warning. The vice-regent's withering look of scorn was the next hint of disaster. Odell suddenly produced a duplicate of the roborg control, but Bjornson was there, riddling him with rifle fire.
Even as the presumed mastermind of the secessionist plot fell dead before him, Alonso maintained his maddening composure. "Did you think, Captain, that we would be so unprepared for treachery?" He turned to look up at the narrow niches along the upper terraces where the gleam of weaponry was seen. "The traitors who tried to take the gun positions were easily apprehended. We expected as much. However–" He pointed to his lapel mike. "We have long since arranged for an electronic override of the roborg controls." He nodded toward the square where the roborgs were already encircling the antiroyalist group and the Golaks were slowly reforming their ranks.
"Sorry about Odell, Your Highness," said Pike, "but I had to let them walk into the trap."
"You did well, Marshal," replied Alonso.
"I don't think either of you are doing well at all," retorted Danny. "We have you covered. If you want to live, call off those roborgs!"
Alonso regarded him almost with the old Duke expression, even including the patronizing smile. "You have gained nothing, little man. I can destroy all of you where you stand. Ravano's fleet is still doomed also. You and your men will lay down your arms at once, unless, of course, you wish to be responsible for a needless massacre here in the plaza."
"You'd better listen to him, Troy," warned Pike vindictively. "He and Odell's staff have been building a fortress into the foundations here. They have the roborgs at their fingertips. The temple guns can be handled by remote control. They can sweep the square. A thousand armed Golaks surround the camp. You haven't got a chance, tin soldier!"
Impasse.
Danny felt a clamminess come over him as he heard disgruntled mutterings around him.
"What the hell, he's blown it!"
"He should have taken the ship while he had it!"
"Where's his damned prophecy now, for Christ's sakes!"
Poyntner and Fitz and Bjornson and Hapgood had nothing to say. He felt their eyes on him. The dark-scaled and brooding one flashed before his mind's eye. "Yet others shall not survive. They shall be found in the dwelling places of evil and go no more out." He wondered if he were mad when he heard himself saying, "You won't stop us, Alonso. It's all of us or none."
Then the miracle came.
* * * *
He learned later about Boozie's "star of prophecy" in the sky the previous night, of how Ravano had seen it as well as others, and of how Noley had made the biggest yabbut of his career, convincing the Talavat king that he must fulfill his promise. Whether it was this or the abduction of Akala or both, the fact remained that Ravano made his final commitment.
The first intimation Danny and his companions had of this development was when the jungle reverberated to the sound of war cries, followed by the hard clatter of unicorn hooves as wave after wave of Tally lancers charged across the ancient flagstones of the square. There was no time to wonder. In the next instant the elite guard was in hand-to-hand combat with Happy's men. The plaza below was a bedlam of conflict as Flight-Com troops fought with royalists and the roborgs lashed out at the oncoming lancers while the Golaks bellowed a challenge and charged forward, firing their rifles as they ran.
From the temple heights came a deadly hall of more powerful machine fire.
War indeed walked the land.
Alonso had disappeared, having been covered by his men, but Danny and Fitz had Pike in their grip.
"You haven't got a chance, smartass!" Danny yelled into his ear above the din of battle. "Unless you show us where the women are. Get moving, Adolf!"
Pike se
emed to be willing. He mentioned a room called the chapel. A surge of anti-royalists moved up the steps onto the terrace, retreating before hundreds of bloodthirsty Golak brutes who had reverted to using their rifles as bludgeons.
In spite of the press of events, Danny and others had to pause for a fleeting moment to stare at the spectacle out in the open plaza.
"The Raks!" somebody yelled. "My God, they've joined the Tallies!"
The giant cyclopes were charging the roborgs, toppling them over by the power of their towering physiques or by means of their fully awakened telekinesis. In fact, several of those baleful red eyes were fixed on the gun positions above in the temple niches. Great stones moved and ground men to death in a juggernaut vice. The same force that had built the ziggurat pile was tearing it apart.
A final touch of the miraculous was the sight of barking dakshas along the jungle perimeter, together with a number of furtive nymph-like figures. The Moals were entering into a final symbiotic rapport with men and half-men, turning the tide of epic transition for the dawn world.
By the time they reached the chapel room in the lower levels of the temple, they were a mere nucleus of minor resistance retreating from an invasion of Golaks. Danny's crew backed by a few dozen of Hapgood's men burst into the former ritual chamber to find Freddie, Lalille, and Akala in the company of several cowled friars. There was no time to talk because suddenly Tallullah appeared from behind the alter hangings.
"Quickly!" she called. "There's a way to the monastery. The girls will be safe there and–"
"Good!" said Danny. "And we can come back from the outside. Let's go!"
Fitz and Bjornson took charge of Pike. Poyntner and Hapgood escorted Lalille and Akala as they followed Tallullah and her friars into the hidden passage. Once they were all safely past the secret entrance, a stone barrier fell in place behind them, blocking all pursuit. Danny held Freddie's hand in his. As they ran through the subterranean tunnel, guided by the friars' flashlights, their mutual grip spoke a language of new if desperate hope. The fragile dream was back. He hadn't made the hiber trip, so whatever fate lay ahead they would share together.
Star Quest Page 26